TSA considers being upset at screening procedures to be an indicator of terrorist intentions

CNN has discovered that the TSA considers "complaining about TSA procedures" to be a profiling marker for potential terrorists. They explain that one terrorist (the "twentieth hijacker") complained a lot about TSA screening, and so that means "getting angry about TSA screening procedures" goes in the "signs of terrorist intent" bucket.

However, CNN also notes that intelligence analysts say that Al Qaeda official policy is for its operatives to be meekly cooperative when pulled over for TSA screening. Strangely, "cooperating with the TSA" has not been added to the TSA's profiling screen.

"Expressing your contempt about airport procedures -- that's a First Amendment-protected right," said Michael German, a former FBI agent who now works as legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We all have the right to express our views, and particularly in a situation where the government is demanding the ability to search you."
"It's circular reasoning where, you know, I'm going to ask someone to surrender their rights; if they refuse, that's evidence that I need to take their rights away from them. And it's simply inappropriate," he said.

TSA security looks at people who complain about ... TSA security (Thanks, AirPillo!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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aeon

I always had a hankering to do a Route 66 road trip as a detour on our way back home downunder after a visit to see friends and family in the UK. SE Asia gets our tourist dollar now, we’ve been boycotting the USA ever since this buffoonery started.
unclemike

Yossarian: Whooo…That’s some catch, that Catch-22.
Dr. ‘Doc’ Daneeka: It’s the best there is.
- Michael Smith
  
  I would love to see the TSA take on Major ___de Coverley. Enough with that loyalty oath crap. Major ___de Coverley is my hero and my role model.
Anonymous

All this proves to me is that the terrorists won. They sought to induce terror, and everything the USA has done is exhibit terror. Only by refusing to be terrorised does one truly win against terrorism.
Rhaspun

I wonder how much actual thinking went into that conclusion? Or is it some bureaucrat just pretending he or she is doing something? I can’t believe they would state that as being a profile marker. What’s another good profile marker we can use? I wonder what the commonality of the 9/11 hijackers is? But in the mean time we can frisk little girls and old grandmothers and any hot looking woman.
Anonymous

According to the CDC the average life expectancy is currently 77.9 years. That’s 682,884 hours. So for every 682,884 people that waste just 1 hour on security theater it’s equal to one life lost. Considering the number of people who fly every year in the US the TSA has wasted more lives than the 9/11 terrorists. Who have they caught? Nobody. If they ever do they will be singing their own praises on every TV and radio in the country for months.

Would anyone like to try and estimate how many millions of dollars of personal property they have “we are not confiscating your stuff, you are volunteering to throw it away”?
Anonymous

The terrorists needn’t lift a finger. We’re screwing ourselves over just well enough. We’ll probably unintentionally crash a plane into another building, without any terrorists, via aircraft maintenance neglect. But relentless profit maximization at the cost of everything else (even human lives, at times) was going on long before the terrorists stepped in…
awjtawjt

Will you still fly when there’s a vaginal/rectal exam policy?
- Anonymous
  
  It’s already inn place. A friend of mine took the bridge from Detroit to Canada to do a favor for a friend. The favor didn’t take long so she returned to go about the rest of her business for the day. CBP said she wasn’t in Canada long enough so she was “obviously” a drug mule. She was detained for over two hours, strip-searched, given vaginal and anal probes and not allowed to call a lawyer since she technically wasn’t under arrest.
  
  She’s joined a suit with several other women who have been similarly abused by CBP, but what do you think the odds are of winning that?
  
  America has become a police state.
Anonymous

And people wonder why I prefer to drive even though the trip will be longer.

For that matter, if everyone on the planet refused to fly for a month I wonder what things would look like. Not that wondering will do anything. it won’t happen
Anonymous

I’ve read the testimony of the customs agent who turned back the likely (*) 20th hijacker. The agent’s methods were akin to the Israeli approach to airport security, and not at all to TSA methods.

1) As far as I recall, the agent did not touch the suspected hijacker or subject him to any physical screening.

2) As others have noted, the TSA was not formed at the time.

3) The agent was interrogating the suspect as he was ENTERING the US, not boarding a flight.

The agent began posing random question. He said that Arabs often came to Florida, but as families going to Disney World, not alone. The man claimed not to know where he was going or where he was staying, so the agent thought, “he sounds like a killer”. The agent commented that when he told his wife this story, she joked that he watched too much TV. The agent told the man that he would not allow him into the country, upon which the man said something like, “I’ll be back”. He said this in English after having claimed not to speak English.

One moral of the story: if a terrorist is attracting attention (like “trying” to blow up a plane in the aisle, where passengers can stop him, instead of the bathroom), either he’s really dumb or he’s trying to get caught so he can survive yet save face. If a non-terrorist is attracting attention, he or she is very likely non-terrorist.

Other moral: we have some sharp customs agent. Remember the agent who noticed that a would-be terrorist coming across the Canadian border was sweating, even though it was winter?

* One reason for the belief that the man who was turned back was the 20th hijacker is that Mohammed Atta was apparently at the airport that day, waiting for him.
Anonymous

The bureaucrats can ignore complaints from the citizens. We don’t pay their salaries (not the *real* money they make, anyway), so we don’t matter. The only way this will ever change is if it becomes seriously detrimental to the airline industry. If enough people stop flying all together, then the airline lobby will start working their magic and mysteriously the “terrorist threat” will drop.
BuzzCoastin

I consider being upset at screening complaints to be an indicator of terrorist intentions of the TSA. Land of the free my ass.
Anonymous

As a non-American who used to visit the USA a lot for vacation and work, Skype Teleconferencing has replaced business trips, and holidays are to China (stunning country side and wildlife), the Philippines (beaches.. sunshine) and Japan (Snowboarding.. sad not to be in Alaska again though).

Obviously the USA wants to make it as painful as possible to visit, so as to keep all that dirty tourist money out of your lovely country.

Keep up the good work, the decline of the USA as a world power continues in leaps and bounds… my holiday money is going to countries that don’t grope and molest me or treat me like a terrorist when I’ve done nothing to warrant it – China for example, where departing from an airport is a pleasure and not a nightmare (Thanks LAX.. never again!)
Coal

“…CNN has learned exclusively.”

I read up to here. Seriously, while CNN may have once been considered a reliable news source, their misleading sensationalist gutter-press reporting on the ongoing disaster in Japan cost them their credibility. I would take anything they say with a very large pinch of salt.

This is not to say the TSA aren’t constantly on the lookout for new ways to overstep their boundaries. Thanks to them (and the culture of tipping), the US has been on my no-go list for years.
Caroline

What gets to me is that they keep using the word “arrogant.” Complaining or questioning, rather than meekly submitting, is arrogant? It’s conceited, haughty, and presumptuous?

Yeah, it’s so stuck-up to get frustrated when you’re treated like a prisoner just to board a plane. How dare you think you deserve any better?

I mean, I could have understood them using the word “stubborn” or “obnoxious” or “belligerent.” But arrogant? Really? Why is that the chosen adjective?

I’m still choosing not to fly. I guess that makes me arrogant.
fruityboots

Just goes to prove that there aren’t and never were any terrorists. There is no Goldstein.
Anonymous

It is good that I do not need to travel to USA.
Amelia_G

Our current security theater MIGHT avert attacks by the US’s woefully under-cared-for mentally ill population.
eaglescout1984

Question I would love to pose to the TSA on this subject:

If you were crossing the border from Mexico to US (as an American citizen) and you were carrying 200 lbs of marijuana in your trunk, would you:

A.) Politely address the crossing agent, explain to him you have bad rear shocks if he asks and give him no reason to search your car

OR

B.) Raise unholy hell about how they have no right to stop you and ask you dumb questions and refuse to tell him why your car is squatting in the back?
IronEdithKidd

Funny how absolutely everything the TSA does is directly counter to their own mission statement.

Caroline@48: CNN reporters do not own thesauruses and the TSA lacks any PR people who own a dictionary? That word they keep using does not mean what they think it means.
phisrow

Obviously, the TSA makes transportation more secure. By definition. Therefore, if you don’t like what they are doing, you are clearly against transportation security, and thus objectively pro terror. Are my vacuous tautologies in order?

TSA Gangstaz.
Teller

I am going to hell for this, but God, I love this comment so. Thank you, Anon.

“Where’s you’re so called “liberty” now America? Your statue is now just a statue and no longer represents anything in your country.

Feel ashamed to your forefathers who has not envisioned an america like this. Fell ashamed that most Americans simply let this stupid lack of respect and liberty pass by like it should be normal. You call other non-american government like they are so bad, and yet, look at yourselves… who’s being enslaved by their government? Is it the communists? Is it the russians? Is it those in foreign lands? No, it’s you guys who pretend to advocate freedom, domcracy, and yet ignore the fact that you guys are the one in a so called “communist” system.

Be ashamed america. Be ashamed of what you ignore.”
Anonymous

this is disgusting. If i have to be searched by a government security guard, i demand that i have an officer present- lmao or is that what white alciada would do? This just in… “Complaining about sexual harassment is an indicator of terrorism”
anansi133

I don’t think security theatrics is an adequate explanation here. If the TSA were merely trying to look busy while on the public payroll, they could do so without being this perverse.

I think there’s an actual intent here to do violence to our civil liberties, and further investigation is warranted.
Tony

I encountered this type of nonsense in 2008. At Washington Dulles, a TSA agent picked me out of the queue and asked if he could search my bag with an experimental device that looks for liquid explosives. I knew because he was asking that I had the right to say no. I played dumb and asked, though. When he heard my answer, he scurried back to his bosses to tell them that I’d refused. At the ID check desk, several TSA goons pulled me aside to intimidate me, asking if there was a reason why I refused. When I told her I said no because I had a right to say no, she said “You do understand why we do this?” I ignored the question, but yes, I very clearly understand why they do “this”.
- Cowicide
  
  You do understand why we do this?
  
  You should have looked her dead in the eye and said one word:
  
  Theatre
  - Boomshadow
    
    And then we’d never have met Tony.
    - Cowicide
      
      And then we’d never have met Tony.
      
      Yeah, you’re right, I think they have a trap door that opens underfoot for people that act like that.
tylerkaraszewski

If having any similarity at all with any terrorist ever makes you a potential terrorist, you may want to be careful about walking, or breathing, while dealing with the TSA. I heard the ’20th hijacker’ did those things, too.
Onecos

TSA is simply another government bureaucracy. The employees are not the best and brightest. Most try to the best job they can within the limitations of government regulations.
- Anonymous
  
  Good point. Every time I go to the post office or DMV they fondle my genitals and then tell me the 4th amendment does not exist. Why are people singling out the TSA?
Anonymous

TSA = Thousands Standing Around.

Nuff said.
Anonymous

How could the “20th hijacker” complain about the TSA, which was formed afterward? The article says he complained about to an immigration official.
Telecustard

How many people fought and died to keep us free against this very sort of tyranny? Does the current state of things mean that their sacrifice was in vain after all? Does it mean we are not worthy of the gift they bequeathed us because we were not smart/ united/ organized/ clued-in/ strong enough to prevent this from happening, much less see it coming?

The Age Of Freedom was brief, but boy you could really see the possibilities for a better future for all. Unfortunately it provided the ideal environment to germinate the seeds of it’s own demise.
Anonymous

I travel overseas frequently for my job. On a recent trip back to the US, I experienced TSA and CPB’s worst service ever: Deliberate delays while staff carried on personal discussions right in front of me while I waited to be screened, mistreatment of my luggage and packed materials resulting in a ruined suit, rude sarcastic remarks, all of which culminated in my missing my flight ($250 in airline fees to boot). Despite the fact that I was pissed off beyond belief, all I could do was say ‘thank you sir’ to all my rude treatment. I was fearful that any type of complaining, feedback, or even attitude would result in further persecution and future problems with CBP. It really burned me that I had to submit and had no way to point out their bad behavior. Sure there’s a complaint line you can call, but I was afraid if I did, I would be subject to even more retaliation in the future.

Now I see that in fact we have armed TSA with the tools to quash any kind of complaint or dissent – that my fear of retaliation was well placed. How frustrating to be in these situations, and have literally no recourse to address obvious misbehavior by their staff.

When I was younger, I used to ask my parents why people didn’t stand up to injustice when they saw it. Now as an adult I’ve learned that tolerating injustice and taking abuse by our officials is just what we adults do to go about living our normal lives. Sad and depressing, really.

Posting anonymously for fear of TSA reprisals.
RuthlessRuben

This, and many many other reports like this, convinced me to accept a five hour wait in London on my flight to Toronto instead of via New York.

Wonder how Canadian custom officials are. Probably just like everywhere else.
Anonymous

Ummm, there WAS no TSA to be upset with in 2001. The TSA was a special gift from the terrorists to us. I suspect they say “You’re welcome!” every day.
awjtawjt

Unfortunately, the TSA is just the canary in the coal mine. Yet another rogue security bureaucracy that won’t be controlled by a higher authority. They happen to be the most visible, so they draw the ire. But behind the scenes, rogue NSA, CIA, FBI, INS, BATF and state & local agents, behave with the same impunity, abusing rights, tazing or killing, warrantless wiretaps, illegal searches and prolonged detention without trial or contact.

Think about how the SS battled the SA for supremacy during Hitler’s rise. The paramilitary hierarchy, the theater, the indoctrination, the propaganda, and, ultimately, the deadliness. Don’t think for a minute it couldn’t happen in this country. Under the right circumstances, it most certainly could happen again: overnight.
- Anonymous
  
  “won’t be controlled by higher authority”? They are doing EXACTLY what the higher authority wants. Take away people’s rights just a little at a time. Abuse them a little more every month. Eventually, they’ll get used to it, they always do.
  
  Unfortunately, there are enough stupid people who buy the “if it saves one life, its worth it” line that the jack@$$es in charge keep getting away with it.
  
  Welcome to the 21st century, the one that will make the 14th seem like happy times.
  - awjtawjt
    
    I think the highest authorities, the elected ones, honestly say they are for freedom, the American way, etc etc and not for erosion of personal freedoms of everyday normal citizens. And so are their deputies. But when it comes down to departmental policy, no fancy words from a higher authority will cause them to shift their tactics. And when it comes down to one guy, like Brad Manning, even the highest of high authorities can’t see it as the rule rather than the exception. So you are correct, I should just leave out the higher authorities phrase. It should just state, “won’t be controlled.” I think this “American freedom” thing kind of got away from us around the middle of WWII.
Galoot

…and if she floats, she’s a witch.
Anonymous

…and if if she sinks, she’s also a witch.
loki_monster

Yeah, I got tagged as someone who complained about TSA procedures because I asked that the TSA agents conduct their junk touching in private. According to the TSA’s website, I have the right to request private screening. When I exercised that right, the TSA agents took down my name and information as a complainer. It’s also important to note that I didn’t resist in any other way or treat the agents with any kind of disrespect. So, TSA’s definition of “complaining” includes exercising the limited rights the TSA itself says you have in the search situation.
Marshall

I have been in this situation. After breaking my friend’s laptop and reducing her to tears, I tried to calmly speak with a TSA supervisor to go about the process of filing a claim, and I was immediately treated as a dangerous, possibly hostile maniac. I found myself being talked to as if I was waving a knife around when I was asking totally normal, calm questions about how to file a claim/complaint and by the end of it, I found myself physically surrounded by goons ready to pounce and an airport cop with his hand resting on his gun. It was intimidating, frightening and disturbing.
Anonymous

Take a stand by laughing.

They want you to object, they want you to get angry, they want you to yell and be pissed off. Then they can harass you and, if you get physical, they can beat you down or shoot you. That’s the GOAL, it keeps the timid ones in line. The TSA is no different from any other force of its kind; the Stanford Prison Experiment proves that it is part of human nature to become the way they are, and for the other people in line to react the way they do.

The defense (and offense) is LAUGHTER. We have to openly, loudly, disrespect and mock them in a way that is actually FUNNY. Instead of becoming a part of a situation designed to make grandma in line behind you quake with fear (of both you, the potential terrorist wolf, and the TSA, her pointy-toothed sheepdogs) we have to get grandma rolling on the floor laughing at the silly, pointless, stupid farce that is the TSA.

Wear a giant strap-on inside your pants (only the TSA will know it’s not real). Laugh uproariously whenever anyone touches you, and explain that you are very ticklish. Keep up a constant patter of clean, family friendly stand-up humor at the expense of the agents. Post on boingboing any routines or jokes you can share with the rest of us. Be FUNNY. Make them look like fools, not like thugs. People aren’t scared of fools.
jonw

Only one in twenty? L.O.L.

Sounds to me like anyone going through screening without being upset has a 95% chance of being a terrorist.
JayByrd

I seriously want more dogs in the airports.
Not only will they make al Qaida nervous, they can also recognize Terminators.
- Victor Drath
  
  More dogs you say? Like the one I saw in Las Vegas sniffing an old man’s suitcase belongings and then the old man’s ass after being selected for a random screening? Kinda reminded me of just about every WWII movie I’ve ever seen where the nazis are searching for jews. It was hard to keep my mouth shut. I remember standing in line wondering if I’d be chosen, and getting ready to mock and ridicule them. I knew I’d be put on a list, possibly detained and miss my flight, even rough up or beaten, but the satisfaction of laughing in their faces and letting them know that while they enjoy power tripping, intimidating and humiliating people, I am not impressed by them nor scared of anything they could do to me.
  
  TSA are morons and the job they do is a sad joke. Check out Bill Forster’s cool little site, homelandsecuritytheater, for a funny perspective of someone who use to work for them.
  - Anonymous
    
    Victor, you say you are “not impressed by them nor scared of anything they could do to me.” And yet you kept your mouth shut. Just like the rest of us.
    
    Don’t dawdle, you will miss your flight.
    - Victor Drath
      
      We were boarding at the time, so there’s no doubt I would have missed my flight if I opened my mouth for either of us, but that isn’t what kept me quiet. I kept quiet because for all I know the old man supports that kind of nonsensical crap, as the majority of dumb dumbs here do. I did wrestle with it in my mind, but thought maybe it was up to him to say something if he thought it was wrong, and maybe it wasn’t right to go making problems for both of us, as it probably would have held him up too and lead to him being questioned/harassed, or even put on a list. If it were just me I wouldn’t care, that’s a different story.
      
      This was just before they started the sexual assault policy. I havn’t flown since then and never will again. I could keep quiet about a stranger’s luggage, but I won’t about what goes on now. Things would get extremely ugly, so it’s a situation it’s just best to avoid.
SonOfSamSeaborn

This whole thing keeps rearing its ugly head and buggering my chances of ever going to the US, and I really, REALLY want to visit the US. So what the fuck am I meant to do? I can save for a year to afford a transatlantic flight, and then get turned away for not following some fucked-up useless procedures and lose all of that money and any chance of visiting what I still consider to be a fascinating and inviting nation?

Fuck it. Fuck them. I hope they realise that they’re damaging their own international (and probably domestic, too) tourism industry, even if only in a minor way.
truth

http://vidreel.com/video/OTMyMjMy/ please remove your shoes
travtastic

Aw, guys, just get used to it.

No, seriously, you’re supposed to have gotten used to it already.
Anonymous

Where’s you’re so called “liberty” now America? Your statue is now just a statue and no longer represents anything in your country.

Feel ashamed to your forefathers who has not envisioned an america like this. Fell ashamed that most Americans simply let this stupid lack of respect and liberty pass by like it should be normal. You call other non-american government like they are so bad, and yet, look at yourselves… who’s being enslaved by their government? Is it the communists? Is it the russians? Is it those in foreign lands? No, it’s you guys who pretend to advocate freedom, domcracy, and yet ignore the fact that you guys are the one in a so called “communist” system.

Be ashamed america. Be ashamed of what you ignore.
- Emo Less
  
  The majority of people who complain about the TSA will show just how “ashamed” they are of what America has become by entering the voting booth and casting another vote for the politicians who spawned and feed the TSA monster. Those who truly are “ashamed” would abstain from voting and thus validating this tyranny.
  - Ronald Pottol
    
    But who is it I should vote for? Obama has turned out to be a third bush term, and sure, I sent money to Russ Feingold, but he lost anyways, who exactly should I be voting for?
johnofjack

This is a fantastically stupid policy, which is not at all a surprise from the TSA.

By this logic, they should give extra screening to everyone with a cellphone, since they’re sometimes used to detonate explosives.

What’s that? A cellphone by itself isn’t a sign of an IED? That’s the kind of thing a terrorist would say. What are you hiding?